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Are they morally wrong?

Where the employers actions morally wrong?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 62.2%
  • No

    Votes: 15 33.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 4.4%

  • Total voters
    45

Miss Chicken

Little three legged cat with attitude
Admiral
I have just read this article

A Victorian nursing home has been criticised for allegedly requiring a staff member to take annual leave for the time she took off to fight the bushfires.
The death toll from the Victorian bushfires stands at 209, two weeks after the Black Saturday fires that razed hundreds of thousands of hectares of bushland in the state and destroyed hundreds of homes.
The Health Services Union claims the Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteer, who works at the Narracan Gardens Aged Care facility at Moe in Gippsland, was under the impression she would continue to be paid by her employer while she helped out in the emergency.
But the union says the woman was subsequently told she had to take the time off as annual leave.
The union's assistant secretary Shaun Hudson says while the nursing home has not acted illegally, their actions are morally wrong.

Full article

I have added a poll asking if what the employer did was morally wrong.
 
I have just read this article

A Victorian nursing home has been criticised for allegedly requiring a staff member to take annual leave for the time she took off to fight the bushfires.
The death toll from the Victorian bushfires stands at 209, two weeks after the Black Saturday fires that razed hundreds of thousands of hectares of bushland in the state and destroyed hundreds of homes.
The Health Services Union claims the Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteer, who works at the Narracan Gardens Aged Care facility at Moe in Gippsland, was under the impression she would continue to be paid by her employer while she helped out in the emergency.
But the union says the woman was subsequently told she had to take the time off as annual leave.
The union's assistant secretary Shaun Hudson says while the nursing home has not acted illegally, their actions are morally wrong.
Full article


Rotten to the core. They should be grateful the fire didn't spread in their direction.
 
^^^ I agree. The employers are scum.

Doubly so if they rely on any help from volunteers themselves as many Australian nursing homes do. For example, my mother used to do the fingernails of many old ladies at a nearby nursing home. If my Mum had been doing that at this nursing home she would have probably been so disgusted that she would have stopped going.
 
I think they were wrong i remember reading a thread a while ago where some one said things like the fire service should be run by volunteers while i disagree with this i feel if certain places relies on volunteers there should be government rules save guarding jobs and wages.
 
Morally...not sure but socially irresponsible for sure. Fighting a ridiculously deadly inferno should not be punished by "take your holiday time for that...hope you had a great vacation."

Bastard employer.
 
I believe it's wrong, and my thoughts are along the same lines as Markas.


J.
 
I'm kind of torn on this one. I think that under normal circumstances I can see where they're coming from since it is a care facility. That being said, a disaster on the scale of those fires should count as a very bloody exceptional circumstance, especially when given the nature of the volunteer work. If she was fighting fires herself or coordinating the teams or doing an essential part of that work or some other skilled role, there should be no punishment. If the volunteer work was something that anyone else could have done off the street with no training then I side a bit more with the employer. Regardless she shouldn't be punished, and the unions/facility need to come to an understanding for future emergencies where volunteers are required.
 
On one hand I'd say it's not right for them to lay this on her for doing her duty as a volunteer worker... it's a problem that needed her to drop what she was doing and help out.

But at the same time... from a business perspective that's not their problem. They don't pay her to drop what she's doing and deal with her volunteer work. They pay her to do her job. Despite helping in a good cause - she stopped working to be a part of that cause.

If it were me I wouldn't raise much fuss about it. Especially as doing voluntary work, I wouldn't expect to be paid - I'd just be happy to help.
 
I say that if she was called up by a authorized fire dept for duty, she should get paid. If she did it on her own, she took annual leave.
 
She was called in by the Country Fire Authority.

Details about the CFA

Much more than a great fire service
CFA is one of the world's largest volunteer emergency service and community safety organisations. CFA is based on community involvement and gains its strength from the commitment of its volunteers and staff.
A Snapshot of CFA Volunteers


There are over 58,000 CFA volunteers from many walks of life including the self employed, mothers at home, students, shift workers, retirees, people looking for work and professionals.
  • 35,263 trained volunteer firefighters
  • 23,020 involved in non firefighting roles
Of this...
  • 4,400 are female fire fighters & incident management roles
  • 6,700 are women in a range of non operational roles
  • 3,400 are junior volunteers (11-15 years)
  • 5,600 are young adults (18-25 years)
97.5% of the people involved in the CFA organisation are volunteers. Supported by over 1400 paid staff, including over 500 career firefighters, providing emergency response and community safety programs throughout Victoria.

CFA covers all regional and country areas and metropolitan Melbourne's rapidly growing outer urban areas.

SOURCE
 
While I personally find the employer's actions shameful, they were not morally wrong-- they were morally neutral. However, if they paid for this person to help fight the fires, they would be morally right. They followed their own rules correctly; however, the President or Board or whoever is in authority should have stepped in to make an exception-- that would be their own contribution to fighting those horrible fires.
 
Yeah, I think morally wrong is a stretch since they did not break the law nor any contractual agreements they had made with this woman.

But cheap, overly rigid, exhibiting astonishingly poor judgment, sure.
 
Lawful =/= Moral.

Ever hear the phrase "you can't legislate morality"? It's truer than you think. Laws are crafted toward achieving something akin to justice, though realistically, a lot of laws are significantly less "truly moral" than you'd ever want to believe.
 
I can't imagine that such behavior on the part of management is going to be very good for employee morale in the long-run. And low morale leads to people quitting, or turning in a poor performance, coming in late and so on.

They would do themselves a service if they just cut the woman some slack, as she was working in service of her country. They don't have to pay her for her time off, but they shouldn't take away her vacation.
 
Lawful =/= Moral.

Ever hear the phrase "you can't legislate morality"? It's truer than you think. Laws are crafted toward achieving something akin to justice, though realistically, a lot of laws are significantly less "truly moral" than you'd ever want to believe.

There was justice, clearly her contractual agreement with the company allowed them to do this, she essentially agreed to it. Simply not being generous is not immoral.
 
I can see the nursing home giving her a mild slap on the wrist for going off and not doing her job--a talk with a manager, that sort of thing. But I expecting her to take leave time to help save lives in a crisis is wildly distasteful.
 
Putting the word "morally" into the poll is a way of steering the poll in the direction the original poster would like to see it go, that is the direction she agrees with.

There is nothing moral about this issue.

Person works for company. Person takes off because they are ordered to by an entity with which they have a previous commitment. It doesn't matter what the organization is, nor the reason. The employer has a right to let the employee go.

The employee is lucky that were able to take off and come back to a job. If you are not at work you do not get paid. It's very simple, and there is no morality involved.
 
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